


The Cobbler's Children Go Barefoot

by Cluegirl



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Askbox Fic, Established Relationship, M/M, PTSD RECOVERY, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 22:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2523800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things become obvious to Sam pretty quickly once he meets the rest of the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cobbler's Children Go Barefoot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [archwrites (Arch)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arch/gifts).



> This work was posted free of charge at archiveofourown.org. Readers are welcome to download this work from AO3 **for their own personal and private use** , but if you are reading it on a site you must pay to access, then you are being robbed, and so am I. Please exit the site and go to archiveofourown.org, where you can find this and the rest of my derivative works under the handle of Cluegirl.

Five things become obvious to Sam pretty quickly once he meets the rest of the Avengers.

Item 1: Tony Stark must suck pussy like a champ in an international show round. Seriously, that is the _only_ thing Sam can think of that would explain the sheer, metric tonnage of shit Pepper Potts puts up with. He knows she's thought of five or six different ways to get away with his murder -- he can read it in her eyes half an hour into the 'New Residents' tour of Stark Tower. That woman's a powerhouse in more than just the business world, no more prone to sentimentality than Sam's Nana, and even if Tony Stark _was_ as cute as he clearly thinks he is, there's no way she'd put up with it unless some frankly amazing skills were on offer. Vibrators are cheap, and they don't insult a woman's house guests, ergo Stark being a Cunning Linguist is the only logical conclusion.

Item 2: Clint Barton is not a man you want to play poker with. His resting bitchface is just about as opaque as any Vegas Whale's bluff, no matter whether he's zoning out on Spongebob in his underwear, or shaking your hand and watching you try not to notice that he's wearing a necklace you last saw around the Black Widow's throat. Spy, sniper, Avenger notwithstanding, that dead-space empty thousand-yard-stare is the scariest thing about the guy, especially for a counselor who damned well _knows_ the kind of hell it takes to create an expression like that. The fact that Barton can pull it on and shake it off again like a goddamned party trick just makes the whole thing freakier.

Item 3: Tony Stark is probably a damn fine cocksucker too, given the fact that the Hulk hasn't yet smeared him into a paste and fingerpainted the walls of the lab he shares with Banner. Big Brother monitoring, top flight equipment, and all the weed Banner could smoke couldn't possibly make the difference otherwise.

Item 4: Thor puts a lot of work into seeming a whole lot dumber than he actually is. He's subtle about it, but the pattern of which things he can work just fine, versus which things he breaks, and more importantly, who's arguing with whom when things get broken, is pretty easy to spot for a middle kid and only boy in a family of contentious, opinionated women. Sam recognizes defusing tactics when he sees them. 

Item 5: Steve Rogers is the fucking _best_. Literally the best. Not just because of the 6 foot 2, blond and blue, valiant and true, turns knees to goo thing, either, though don't _even_ think Sam's not fully cognizant of those fine qualities, thank you kindly. And not for the snarky wit, hung and sprung, wired for endurance (yes-sir-exactly-like-that) and so damned earnest you could chip a tooth on him either. Nor even the frankly adorable way he'll sing along with Nikki Minaj on the radio, and kinda hum over the dirty words. No, the reason behind item number 5 is that within two weeks of them moving into Steve's rooms in Stark's tower in Manhattan, Steve's somehow managed to convince the rest if the team that between the two of them, it's SAM who's got his shit together.

Case in point: It's 3am in the common room, huddled together in a pile of blankets and staring dull-eyed down the barrel of a Disney marathon with ice cream melting to syrup on the side tables, and hell yeah one of the other Avengers is bound to wander in on that shit and wonder what's up. but every time it happens, every damned time, Steve makes out like it's HIS nightmares that dragged their lame asses out of bed. No outright lies, no, but just enough vague truths to leave Sam with a whole fistful of boyfriend points, and the interloper usually inclined to clear out and let him deal with whatever trauma it takes to render a super soldier sleepless. 

Or this one: he's cornered in Stark's lab, grinding his teeth and watching this dude posture and preach and piss all over the remains of the EXO-Falcon under the guise of 'making it better'. Fists clenched and trembling with the strain of not putting the know-it-all's shiny, expensive teeth straight into next week, ears roaring with the blood inside his skull that sounds so much like the screaming wind of a hard dive through flak and mortar shells, and just there, in the space between the realization that Sam needs to leave the room, and the realization that he might throw up first, is Steve. His sarcasm is subtle and sharp as a left hook, and Stark rises to it like a trained orca after a herring. Cap's got Stark insulted, outraged, and shouting nose to nose with him before the genius even notices that Sam's fled the workshop to go and shake apart for awhile in the john. 

(They're back to trading friendly disrespect by dinnertime, Steve and Stark. And the new wings, when Stark finishes them, are indeed sturdier better balanced, and a little less weighty than the old ones. Also hot rod red with silver accents, because apparently Tony Stark's got all the refined taste of a Jersey shore pimp, and has never heard of aerial stealth. Sam is careful never to say, in as many words, that the new wings are 'better'. Drives Stark crazy. Sam figures a little frustration's probably good for him.)

Or how, when the Winter Soldier looms up on the conversational horizon, and Sam's knees start to jerk, fidget, bounce in place, and his palms to sweat cold at the memory of pitiless eyes and falling forever, it's Steve's dry, hot fingers that find Sam's beneath the table and press his jittering still. They twine with his and cling, dry and warm, and steady enough for the both of them to get by. And nobody, not even Natasha, looks at Sam with that worried, tentative caution that they aim at Steve when they have to tell him that, yet again, there's no sign of Barnes. Sam gets to thank his fucking stars in peace, knowing that even with as much as he wants to find his Bucky again, Steve won't begrudge Sam his relief that they don't have to do it today.

One time in team practice drills, Thor cut loose at Steve's insistence. Lightning fingers reached out and plucked Iron Man right from the sky, and the physical punch of thunder drowned out Stark's gleeful whoop even as it filled Sam's breath with the ghosts of shrapnel and Riley spiraling to earth, trailing blood and black smoke behind him like a Bride's cathedral train. Then suddenly Steve's voice was in his ear, hot and low through the ringing, like he was pressed against Sam's back, skin to sweaty skin and arms wound tight around him, and- "Take the shot," he said.

What shot?

But it was Hawkeye who answered, "Happy to, Captain," and proceeded to dive his ass straight off the cell tower without a second look, arcing out into space not twenty feet farther along Sam's trajectory. A lunge and a burst of throttle, and Sam had got him by the body harness as soon as that second arrow cleared the string. Barton adjusted to the carry instantly, his faith in Sam's grip a tangible, terrifying thing, and three seconds and two musical * _thwip_ *'s later, both Iron Man and the Prince of Asgard were sporting identical purple dye smudges right across their asses. 

They matched the ones already on their foreheads.

Two months later, Hill talks to Sam about his work with the VA. Like she doesn't even know how close he was to getting fired anyway before he quit and followed Steve onto those helicarriers. Like it wasn't in Sam's file that he'd be facing an unpaid leave of absence if he missed another evaluation or a session with his shrink.

She sets him up with a group of SHIELD agents, survivors of the HYDRA infestation who have more doubtful ghosts and vicious secrets in their eyes than any Vet Sam's yet seen, himself included, and he knows -- he just fucking _knows_ Steve's responsible for that too. Because who better than the first of Heroes would know just how much easier it is to get out from under your own demons when someone nearby needs you to help them fight theirs; how it's so much easier to man up and fight when you're not the only one shitting it in the foxhole; how solving someone else's problems sometimes make yours seem like they were never really there in the first place.

There's a part of him that's terrified; you just don't _hand_ that kind of power to a broken man. You don't lay that kind of trust onto a dude who's liable to flinch and drop it. But there's another, cannier part of Sam that absolutely gets what Steve's doing here: setting the bar just about out of reach, and then using the sheer, superhuman power of his unshakable faith to kick Sam's ass right up over it. And fuck if, even knowing the con for exactly what it is, Sam can bring himself to fall short.

He's a mess, really. He's known that for two years -- from about six weeks into his group certification courses, when he'd figured out that learning what to say to those who were suffering from his own brand of sickness wasn't going to do him any favors when it came time to do his own listening. He knew he'd only be able to ignore his own demons for so long before they started moving into his calm, tidy life and raiding his fridge. Having Steve Goddamned Rogers show up like a fallen angel at his door though -- singed and hunted and gorgeous as the day was long -- had seemed like the perfect reprieve. Save the world, Wilson, leave therapy for later.

Instead, taking on Captain America's flinty-eyed personal demon had hit way closer to home than Sam had been ready for. In the long search that followed, all the tidy pretenses Sam had hid his dysfunction behind had fallen to pieces. Steve, he found, was a hard man to lie to.

Steve, he also found, was a good lover to have when you needed to be held together, and a great friend to have when your game-face needed backing up.

But in the quiet of their rooms; door locked and privacy filters engaged, masks and ruses and clothes all dropped aside; sweaty and clinging, gasping heat into the chilled places the world leaves on them both, it becomes pretty obvious that they're both damned familiar with the thin ledge of Cope. They've each done their time clinging to it by their fingernails, and they've each hauled the ones they love back up over it time and time again. And been hauled themselves too.

Steve promises, wordless and by silent, insistent, osmotic process of skin to sweaty skin, that it's not always going to be Sam dangling out there, and that he needs Sam to get strong enough to hold onto him when it's his own turn.

And, best as he can, Sam tries to believe that such a thing will ever be possible.

But he figures, in his better moments, so long as only one of them's out on that ledge at any given time, between him and Captain America, they ought to be able to get by without leaving _too_ much of a mess.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a challenge that I'm pretty sure was intended to turn out as a happy little smutbunny when Archwrites slung it at me. Unfortunately, my Brain. And so we have me tilting at several well-established fanon tropes with this one, and pointing out that sometimes the ones who seem to have it all together are actually patching the cracks with chewing gum and hope when nobody's looking.
> 
> And if it seems like I'm busting on Tony here? I am -- for a change, I thought it'd be interesting if someone besides Steve _wasn't_ charmed by him on first meeting. Don't worry though -- Tony always be my favorite team pony.
> 
> Come visit me on [my tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/theactualcluegirl)


End file.
